Critical Pedagogy Discussion 2022

Running head: CRITICAL PEDAGOGY
CRITICAL PEDAGOGY
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY1
The aim of this paper is to discuss various factors and features of critical pedagogy. This
is a teaching approach which combines different critical theories and radical philosophies and
attempt to encourage the students to question as well as challenge the posited domination.
This helps the students to undermine the practices and beliefs alleged to dominate. Through
critical consciousness, the students will be developing the habit of thought, writing, reading
and speaking of those which lies beneath the surface of the socially granted meanings. In this
regard the teachers are the helping persona who instigate the students to question the
traditionalism and ideologies which are considered to be oppressive. These teachers
encourage the liberatory individual as well as collective responses for the actual conditions of
their own lives.
In this context the students who question the authority or the ideology of the traditional
thoughts remains a member of a group or a course of study which he or she is critically
studying. This can be religion, cultural norms, national identity and expected roles. The
student why critically studying the course he or she starts to see the present society as highly
problematic. This leads him or she to share the knowledge acquired. This knowledge sharing
is coupled with the attempt of change to the perceived oppressions of the society. In this
respect, the students are to be controlling their class activities, grading and syllabus.
1. Identification of problem
The main problem of critical pedagogy is the question to oppression. The students
while following the path of critical pedagogy must go beyond his myths, received
wisdoms, clichés and mere opinions. Through these, the ideology of the common
people are regulated in the society. This is the reason why critical pedagogy is also
termed as the pedagogy of the oppressed. In order to understand the problems of
critical pedagogy the factor of oppression has to be understood. Oppression is the
systematic as well as institutional abuse of power by one group at the expenses of the

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY2
others. This also includes the use of forces for maintaining his process to e dynamic.
The main problems here is the domination of one particular group on the other. The
ideology is developed in such a way that the people who are designated as the
inferiors will be feeling confined. This will hinder all their growth and realisation of
spiritual, physical, emotional and psychological potential and wellbeing making them
more powerless.
In order to understand the problems that critical pedagogy touches, knowing its features is
essential. The critical pedagogy demands that the cultural domination by the colonial groups
creates barrier for the development of the anti-colonial education which must have an end and
the role of the indigenous or native knowledge must get the opportunity to flourish among the
people of the country (Brayboy, Mckinley & Maughn, 2009). Secondly there is a political
nature of the education that surrounds the education system as the government of the country
is responsible for the educational growth of the students. Moreover, the teachers have their
own political notions which are transmitted through their knowledge sharing process. In this
regard the domination of the white knowledge is found. As mentioned by the author like
Leonardo (2004), the white culture has a truly dominating role in the growth of education in
the different parts of the world. It dates back again to the colonial time when the native
practices and ideology was submerged with the innovation in the art, Science and literature of
the white people. This supplies power to the knowledge and keeps the privileged on the top
of the social level and the underprivileged on the bottom. Thirdly, the education is the guide
for the development of the society towards justice and equality in all forms. Critical
pedagogy founds problem in the structure of the education system where the curriculum
differentiates students on the basis of the race, class, gender, sexuality, religion and their
physical abilities (Ladson-Billings, 1998). These are the problems pointed out by the
practitioners of critical pedagogy.